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PoliGAF 2014 |OT| Kay Hagan and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad News

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benjipwns

benjipwns

Banned
Joe Molotov said:
I got Sotomayor too. We should rub one out together (no gay stuff, tho).
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95608-wiggling-Shaq-dancing-gif-imgu-kWlY.gif
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
zero shift said:
Reparations are pointless. Just handing out money isn't going to do the best job in aiding impoverished black communities. There needs to be investment in education, better community support, and redistributing wages for low wage jobs.
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read the article, i can tell you haven't
 
P

Particle Physicist

between a quark and a baryon
thepotatoman said:
So then pelosi's giving republicans the full power to say "a bipartisan committee has found Obama and Hillary complicit in misdeeds regarding Benghazi".

I don't know if that sentence means anything to the average voter, but the nightly news and Sunday shows just eat that crap up, which does eventually change the average voter's views. Imagine how differently those shows would have covered the ACA if a few republicans voted for it and publicly played along with the negotiations. I also remember that when the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission came out with their report, the majority's findings were treat as the entire commissions findings, despite cries from the right otherwise.

Maybe it'd work if they use the minority opinion section of the report to call out what a shame the investigation was, but I don't know if I see that coming. Just look at what the ranking democrat on the committee is saying about it.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...d-participating-in-benghazi-select-committee/

He's not wrong, but at some point that duty has to be considered fulfilled, and we instead owe it to those Americans to not let people drag out this tragedy for political purposes, and owe it to the family members to let them move on with their lives. You're simply allowing this to happen by playing along with this farce instead of saying that the issue is settled, all relevant information is already out there, and it's time to move on.
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7 seats for Republicans, 5 for Democrats. That is exactly what is going to happen. :(
 
B

bananas

Banned
You got: Antonin Scalia

There is literally nothing more in the world you want more than to watch Antonin Scalia put on a dress or make out with someone of the same sex and watch him realize — in horrible, abject terror — that he totally, totally loves it. Yeah, you want that so, so bad.

ERRSTOb.gif
 
H

Hitokage

Setec Astronomer
Wilsongt said:
http://i.imgur.com/4EddMbM.gif
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This gif seriously makes me not want to read this thread, above any other possible complaint I might have at this time.

APK, alstein: I know I owe you two guys a response. I just got sidetracked.

Edit: Please don't prequote and break post chronology. Make a new post. I know you have 60 seconds between new posts. I do too. It's really not that hard to manage.
 
R

RustyNails

Member
And this is why Republicans should be very careful about VA controversy (Article from 2/27/2014)

(Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republicans blocked legislation on Thursday that would have expanded federal healthcare and education programs for veterans, saying the $24 billion bill would bust the budget.

Even though the legislation cleared a procedural vote on Tuesday by a 99-0 vote, the measure quickly got bogged down in partisan fighting.

Supporters said the measure would have brought the most significant changes in decades to U.S. veterans' programs. For example, it called for 27 new medical facilities to help a healthcare system that is strained by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

With Democrats pressing for passage this week, Senate Republicans, backed by their leader, Mitch McConnell, attempted to attach controversial legislation calling for possible new sanctions on Iran that President Barack Obama opposes.

"The issue of Iran sanctions ... has nothing to do with the needs of veterans," complained Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Bernard Sanders of Vermont, the main sponsor of the bill.
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W

Wilsongt

Member
Hitokage said:
This gif seriously makes me not want to read this thread, above any other possible complaint I might have at this time.

APK, alstein: I know I owe you two guys a response. I just got sidetracked.

Edit: Please don't prequote and break post chronology. Make a new post. I know you have 60 seconds between new posts. I do too. It's really not that hard to manage.
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I mentally had the same reaction as that gif when given the imagery of Scalia in a dress making out with another man.
 
H

Hitokage

Setec Astronomer
Chichikov: Hey, I said imagery. I didn't specify what the material actually was. Also, the director of Hausu also co-directed a hilariously awful and racist anime movie called Kenya Boy.

It's rather interesting seeing people in another nation do the same thing many American conservatives do when they look back into the past. The usual "when Americans knew they were Americans and colored folk knew their place" type bullshit.
 
H

hipsterpants

Member
Is TIME regarded as being pretty shitty around here? I feel like it gets a pretty bad reputation. My parents still get it and the most recent has the cover story about the increased awareness of sexual assault on campus and I was probably going to read it tomorrow. Kind of amusing since I'm pretty sure it was TIME that had an article with some woman stating that "rape culture" was overblown or overly exposed or something like that.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
crush said:
Is TIME regarded as being pretty shitty around here? I feel like it gets a pretty bad reputation. My parents still get it and the most recent has the cover story about the increased awareness of sexual assault on campus and I was probably going to read it tomorrow. Kind of amusing since I'm pretty sure it was TIME that had an article with some woman stating that "rape culture" was overblown or overly exposed or something like that.
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The reporting can be good at times, like that huge healthcare story from last year, but usually it's just decent at best. Pick it up if an article in there strikes your fancy, just don't go by the cover.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
crush said:
Is TIME regarded as being pretty shitty around here? I feel like it gets a pretty bad reputation. My parents still get it and the most recent has the cover story about the increased awareness of sexual assault on campus and I was probably going to read it tomorrow. Kind of amusing since I'm pretty sure it was TIME that had an article with some woman stating that "rape culture" was overblown or overly exposed or something like that.
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Full disclosure: I won TIMES person of the year award in 2006, so I might be a bit biased in its favor.

It used to be legit great, but these days it's a shell of its former self.
There is still good writing to be found there, but their general scope and ambition is on the decline. They also do some silly publicity gimmicks from time to time, but honestly, I'm less bothered by that.
 
H

Hitokage

Setec Astronomer
crush said:
Is TIME regarded as being pretty shitty around here? I feel like it gets a pretty bad reputation. My parents still get it and the most recent has the cover story about the increased awareness of sexual assault on campus and I was probably going to read it tomorrow. Kind of amusing since I'm pretty sure it was TIME that had an article with some woman stating that "rape culture" was overblown or overly exposed or something like that.
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Misdirected is the better term for that. They felt it took away from the reality that the majority of sexual assaults are by a few repeat offenders.
 
R

RustyNails

Member
benjipwns said:
11180542525_4a60e0237c_z.jpg
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That is doggone ridiculous. I would love to read Obama's Iran Gamble feature story. No wonder Americans learn about the world from movies.

But to the question of whether its crap or not, it's not. I mean it's the only decent magazine besides The Economist that will at least keep you informed of the issues and policy. You can do a lot worse.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
shadowsdarknes said:
Timothy Geithner did a 42 minute interview with Jon Stewart last night regarding the financial crash of 2008.

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/extended-interviews/z9b8f1/timothy-geithner-extended-interview

Good back and forth if this topic interests you.
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44 minutes? awesome! I love the extended interviews, really informative. I'm hoping Colbert can do some of that (probably not though :( ) obviously not as in depth but bringing on smart people and not just asking them about cat videos

Also the FREEDOM ACT passed. Obama worse than Bush
 
C

Crisco

Banned
This VA crisis is basically the culmination of the GOPs decades long strategy to delegitimize government. They defund, cut, or cripple the operational capability of every federal government agency and then complain that it doesn't work right. They ignored and neglected to improve an already inefficient system for decades and then voted to flood it with millions of new veterans over the course of two wars. What did they think was going to happen? I worked on a module for the VHA's electronic health record system back in 2010 as part of a research grant, and as of then, the bulk of the system was still written in FORTRAN. They've been working on a modern system, but the roll-out is extremely slow, and they just changed vendors again due to bureaucratic red tape. The scale of the problem is enormous: you're talking about the largest healthcare service in the country, by several orders of magnitude, serving some of the most vulnerable members of our society. Obama couldn't fix it all in 4 terms.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
Never let a good crisis go to waste

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...der-now-allowing-vets-care-in-private-sector/

The chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee is calling on the Obama administration to permit veterans waiting for care at VA hospitals to seek treatment outside that system, if they want.

Rep. Jeff Miller, a Florida Republican, called on President Barack Obama to issue an executive order that would allow those veterans to act on their own and charge the government for outside care.
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PD how do you expect bipartisan reform with this party?
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
shadowsdarknes said:
Timothy Geithner did a 42 minute interview with Jon Stewart last night regarding the financial crash of 2008.

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/extended-interviews/z9b8f1/timothy-geithner-extended-interview

Good back and forth if this topic interests you.
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They sure talked in circles for a long time. Stewart really needed to press Geithner on why Congress didn't authorize them to bail out homeowners or why the administration didn't make a lot of noise about wanting to bail out homeowners in order to pressure Congress into authorizing that. As best I could tell, Geithner's story was that he really wanted to bail out homeowners, that that would have been good policy, that no interest group was opposed to it, and that nevertheless Congress didn't want to allow that and couldn't have been talked into it.
 
R

RustyNails

Member
Gotchaye said:
They sure talked in circles for a long time. Stewart really needed to press Geithner on why Congress didn't authorize them to bail out homeowners or why the administration didn't make a lot of noise about wanting to bail out homeowners in order to pressure Congress into authorizing that. As best I could tell, Geithner's story was that he really wanted to bail out homeowners, that that would have been good policy, that no interest group was opposed to it, and that nevertheless Congress didn't want to allow that and couldn't have been talked into it.
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Bailing out homeowners is very tricky and can lead to more problems. I am curious to learn what your thoughts are on how to implement such a government program.
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
RustyNails said:
Bailing out homeowners is very tricky and can lead to more problems. I am curious to learn what your thoughts are on how to implement such a government program.
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I haven't worked out how one would go about implementing that. But apparently Geithner thought it was a good and feasible idea and only didn't do it because Congress wasn't willing to allow it. That was not the impression I got around that time, when Congressmen were spending a lot of time happily attacking the bailout as a bailout of Wall Street rather than Main Street. So it seems like an obvious thing to ask Geithner to expand on.
 
A

adamsappel

Member
Gotchaye said:
I haven't worked out how one would go about implementing that. But apparently Geithner thought it was a good and feasible idea and only didn't do it because Congress wasn't willing to allow it. That was not the impression I got around that time, when Congressmen were spending a lot of time happily attacking the bailout as a bailout of Wall Street rather than Main Street. So it seems like an obvious thing to ask Geithner to expand on.
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There was a lot of constituent anger about poor people getting houses for free, that they couldn't afford in the first place, while they have to work hard and pay their mortgages and nobody was bailing them out.
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
adamsappel said:
There was a lot of constituent anger about poor people getting houses for free, that they couldn't afford in the first place, while they have to work hard and pay their mortgages and nobody was bailing them out.
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Yeah, this would almost certainly have been part of the political calculation, provided Treasury actually ever wanted to do this. But I think you're misunderstanding - I'm not wanting Stewart to press Geithner on this because I expect a real answer. Geithner's strategy in the interview was to blame Congress, but his story doesn't hang together very well because there didn't seem to be much of an effort by the administration to get Congress to approve whatever Main Street bailout Geithner had in mind before they bailed out the banks (if in fact any such approval was actually needed). Even if he's telling the truth, it would be valuable to have "out there" some discussion of the political calculation that was made.

The actual interview was not very valuable. Stewart complained about the bailout as implemented. Geithner basically agreed with Stewart but said it was the best bailout possible given the constraints everyone was operating under. And then Geithner dispensed with the issue of seriously accounting for those constraints by treating Congress as a black box, and didn't even talk much about all the things he did (or should have done) to expand the space of possible options by trying to move the constraints. But the nature of the constraints was basically the whole disagreement between Stewart and Geithner.
 
C

Coriolanus

Banned
RustyNails said:
Bailing out homeowners is very tricky and can lead to more problems. I am curious to learn what your thoughts are on how to implement such a government program.
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That's such a... gublhf... phrase. You can change it with pratically anything and still make it valid =/

Anyway, could make it so that the government would become the creditor of the debt, and how much people would have to pay back would be determined by a comparison between value at the time, current value, and how much the person had already payed, in addition to making the "bailout" less significant as property size/value increased. If you got a tiny and cheap place, you'll have to pay nearly nothing back; consider it a form of government housing. Banks that were abusing the system would only get back a percentage of the money based on current value, as a punitive measure for being dicks and abusing insurance systems.

Some people would be annoyed by the poor getting houses, sure. Those people vote republican.

Also something something jail them, break banks apart, remember that you've antitrust laws, so on and so forth.

Additionally, I'm somewhat curious. Does your government lack a system where people up to a certain level of income are able to apply for housing loans (and only for certain kinds of housing) at a public bank?
 
A

AntoneM

Member
Apologies up front for sounding a little too main OT forum.

It occurs to me that our government has no realistic means to break up a bank deemed to big to fail since there is too much competition and it would be nearly impossible to prove any sort of collusion.

We still have banks that are too big to fail in that we can't allow them to implode and go out of business for fear that it would ruin our economy. This seems to be an accepted truth of the majority of the federal congress.

So what are the implications?

Does that mean that a bank (its board of directors actually) can threaten the US economy if they don't like a particular piece of legislation?

Is that not reason enough to pass legislation that allows the government to break up a bank that is so large and influential that it can threaten to crash the economy if it doesn't get its way?
 
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